


Signal Light

by Angelwingsl3 (Marie_Fanwriter)



Series: Macen & Avitus [7]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Feels, M/M, M/M Rares 2018, Post-Game(s), Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 05:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13827525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_Fanwriter/pseuds/Angelwingsl3
Summary: Avitus Rix, the new turian pathfinder, has been tasked with finding the lost souls of Ark Natanus. There is only one place he’d rather be.





	Signal Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bioticfox (ayambik)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayambik/gifts).



Request by bioticfox (ayambik)

Macen Barro/Avitus Rix: Either something really fluffy pre-MEA or something really angsty after the game. Maybe combine both with flashbacks? I prefer non-explicit works.

\- - -

Avitus stood on the bridge of his ship, it was much like Ryder’s Tempest. All sleek turian lines with the human openness that they tended to favor, despite the obvious structural weaknesses of the large view ports. _‘Macen would have loved it,’_ he sighed to himself as he watched the stars remain motionless outside beyond the subtle blue blur of the ship’s mass effect field. They were millions of kilometers away, unhindered by the shifts in the rest of the galaxy.

His mate had wanted to see them, it was one of the things he dreamed of the most, when Andromeda had been just a dream and not a reality. _‘Will they look different?’_ he’d asked in one of his rapidfire monologues. In that moment the ex-Spectre hadn’t known the answer. He wanted to believe that they’d be brighter here, in a Galaxy where he didn’t need to live in the shadows. But even now he didn’t know the answer, for most of the time it didn’t feel like he was really alive anymore.

Not without his bonded at his side.

Back in the Milky way, the pair had been together for years in secret. Macen, the up and coming Blackwatch agent, always under the scrutiny of Command. And Avitus, the daring Spectre charged with protecting the Eagle Nebula with a few enemies too many. The amber-eyed turian hadn’t wanted to endanger his lover, or damage his career in any way. His emerald-eyed companion had relented to the secrecy simply because he’d asked. Macen was always the more accomodating of the two.

Each and every day that Avitus spent alone he regretted the decision more and more. It was worse now… with SAM in his head. The broken AI constantly reminding him of his partner’s voice. Constantly spouting on about the stars. But for the life of him, he couldn’t give it up. Refused to actually, against the doctor’s orders.

A gauntlet covered hand brushed over the smooth metal of his shoulder pauldron. He wouldn’t lose the only part of Macen he had left. That and the faded bondmarks over his shoulder were the only physical things that could connect him to his mate. The Pathfinder’s cabin on the Natanus, their cabin, had been destroyed. Macen’s body had never been recovered. There was nothing of his brown-plated companion’s on his person when he was in the stasis pod. Nothing with his scent still lingering after over 600 years in stasis and then weeks upon weeks lost on a hostile planet.

“Sir...”

A dual-toned voice brought him out of his reverie. His amber gaze refocused and he swung around to look at the navigator that had spoken up. “Telaxis, what is it?” he asked the turian female in an even tone, nothing betraying his internal strife. Saren had taught him well in that regard, he admittedly couldn’t outright lie very well, but hiding his inner thoughts he could manage. Especially when those thoughts centered on Macen.

“There’s a new beacon showing up on the coms, sir. Havarl.”

“Havarl?” He repeated, the distaste obvious. He _hated_ that planet more than any place he’d ever been in his life. Clawing his way out of a stasis pod, weeks of survival and loss, neverending anxiety beating against his chest… he couldn’t stand it. And he’d grown up in the outer colonies, so he knew what hell was like. Not to mention he’d survived training under the most ruthless Spectre in recent memory… or well… not so recent memory now, he supposed. “I thought the angara had scanned the planet completely and came up empty?”

She nodded to him, her blue irises intent on his face. The female had been a Hierarchy communications officer and navigator since before the Relay 314 incident, she was fairly unflappable and had been at his side since the day he’d stepped foot onto this ship. “They did sir, but I tried an older algorithm. There seems to be a single source from the opposing side of the planet that the angaran encampment and ruins sit on.”

From angaran encampment he took the meaning to be, _‘where you were stranded.’_

“Take us in then, Warren.”

“Aye sir!” his human pilot replied, her hands rapidly shifting over the orange haptic interface to change course and speed. “Approximately thirty minutes till drop, sir. The southern continent is largely uncharted, so it may take a few minutes to find a suitable landing site.”

“Do we expect resistance?”

The woman shook her head once. “Not from the Roekaar at least. Potentially from local fauna though… there’s a reason the angara chose the northern side.”

He hummed an understanding tone and then reiterated the subvocal tone with the word. “Understood.” He turned to his second, “Telaxis, call Roor’sma and Ted. I’d like to be prepared… have them meet me in the hold five minutes before we drop.”

Without waiting for a reply, the tall turian turned on heel and headed for his cabin. He slid down the ladder with practiced ease and stepped into the overly large room on his own. That was something else he hated… the windows were vast in here as well. The room extraneous. It was larger than the crew’s bunk room and six of them slept in there, here it was just him. Given enough time in dock, he’d make the change. But that wouldn’t happen until he’d managed to find the rest of the missing turians.

Fifty percent of the cryo chambers had been jettisoned from the Natanus. They’d found about seventy-five percent of those in the months since then... but it wasn’t good enough. It wouldn’t be until he managed to add his mate’s body to the list of foundlings. With SAM transferred to him, his mate’s dying breaths recorded for him, he knew there was no chance at finding him alive. Yet he couldn’t let go. So instead he continued the search… needing to see him for closure.

Avitus had killed thousands over the course of his career as a Spectre and soldier in the Hierarchy military before that. If anyone should think a single body didn’t matter, it should be him. But in this case, he couldn’t let go.

One day the search would end, either with a body found or because the new council demanded that he stop, demand their ship back. There were already rumors of the latter, and more likely, eventuality spinning around on the Nexus. And when that day came, he’d step down. Make his navigator the new Pathfinder and go out on his own.

He refused to leave Macen behind. Even if it took him the rest of his life, he promised himself that he would put his mate to rest and join him with the Spirits.


End file.
